The New York Times, December 5, 1897, p.13:
HOUSE-HUNTING IN PARIS.A Wily and Strategic House Agent
Who Cleverly Gets One in His Toils.
AN ARTIST AT HIS BUSINESS.
Drysdale Started Out Intending to Hire a Flat,
but the Agent's Strategy Was Too Much,
and He Ended Up by Becoming a Tenant of a House in Passy.
PARIS, Nov. 15.--Speaking of art, there is considerably more of it in this town than you will find in the Louvre or the Luxembourg. You run across it in the most unexpected places. Sometimes to your joy and again to your sorrow.
Cabby and the concierge and the garçon are all artists when it comes to wheedling tips--the masons in cutting stones, the glaziers in erecting glass canopies. Nobody but an artist could have invented the Parisian system of painting across the front wall of every house, in glaring black script, the words "Defense d'Afficher," meaning post no bills.
But these are minor matters. It is not until you find high art in the real estate offices that you appreciate the fact that you really are in one of the art centres of the world.
The house agent, as they call him here, carries his profession to such artistic pinnacles that he is worthy of study; and by your leave I will introduce him to you...
To bring him up in good form, we will imagine that you arrived in Paris last night with your family and all their trunks after a long and tiresome journey from Belgium, let us say, and took them to the first hotel whose name presented itself; the Grand will do, or the Louvre, or even the Grand Hotel Terminus, which, although a railway hotel, is apparently a good one...
The Search for Apartments.
That is all very well for the night, but in the morning came the terrible awakening... Like a brave American, you sprang up, prepared for the battle, and pressed the button. In a few minutes there came a knock at the door.
"Entrez!" you answered; and the maid stepped in.
"Bon jour, Mam'selle!" you said, from the depths of your dressing gown. (Ah, you rogue, you understand the Parisian forms of politeness.) "Apportex-moi, s'il vous plait, deux tasse, (no, hold on; tasse is a cup, but what the deuce is the plural? No matter) deux tasse du café au lait, avec du petit pain. Et du papier, Mam'selle. Le Journal, Le Petit Journal, Le Messenger; all the papers, hang it, that you can get your hands on, I want to see the 'apartments to let' advertisements."
New York French, you early discovered, is like a poor well in midsummer--it soon runs dry. But over coffee and rolls you found yourself in a maze of announcements of "Appartements à louer," "maison à louer, avec écurie et remise," "à louer, bel appartement meuble, luxeux et confortable, sur belle avenue, comprenant entresol-salon, salle à manger; table billard; trois chambres maitres, chambre valet de chambre; cuisine; 4eme étage; deux chambres demestiques; caves écrire so and so."
"And what does '4eme étage' mean?" a doubtful voice asked over your shoulder.
"Why, fourth floor, of course," you replied. there is always one victim upon whom you can exercise your American French.
"Then that won't do," said the voice, with great decision. "I know what the fourth floor means in France. First they have the rez de chambre, which is the ground floor; then the entresol, which is the second. When you climb two flights of stairs, you come to the first floor, so the fourth étage is the sixth story. Read the next one."
Discovery of the House Agent.
You read the next one, and many other next ones, and at length your eye fell upon the advertisements of the house agents. That was something that had not occurred to you before. Here were men, a dozen of them at least, offering you blandly "everything you need in Paris," which, presumably, did not include what you needed most, namely, d'argent. But they would rent you a house or flat or a stable or a coach house or a grand château in the country; and they all spoke English, and all apparently, were possessed of a burning desire to be of service to you. It did not take long to wriggle out of the agonies of house hunting by employing a house agent.
I see you an hour later walking up the Boulevard des Italiens toward the house of Smithson Smithereens, one of the most enterprising of the house agents; and as I have been waiting for you at the corner of the Rue Scribe for the express purpose I join you there, and we go together to do this important business.
The office is somewhat smaller than its flaring advertisements have led us to expect. It is in fact about ten feet wide, with just room enough in front for a door and a window; and as it is deep, and the only light is in front, the after part is lost in obscurity. But in this pigeon hole four or five clerks are at work; and there are indications that the place is not only an estate office, but an office also where letters are received and distributed, an office where steamship tickets are sold, and railway tickets, and advertisements received, and various guide books are sold. Indeed, there are few branches of industry short of actual cooking and chamberwork that the Parisian house agent does not dabble in; and though he neither cooks nor sweeps himself, he will procure you either a chef or a sweeper on short notice, for a trifling commission.
Beginning of Trouble.
We are immediately approached upon entering by a young man, who asks what he can do for us; and it is this young man whose artistic ways we are to study, for he is the real house agent, Mr. Smithson Smithereens keeping himself judiciously in the background.
He is by no means a dapper young man, but on the other hand he is not shabby. He looks like a young business man who is too full of affairs to give much attention to dress. When he speaks it is in excellent English; and when he learns that we are Americans he is simply delighted, for he is an American, too, from Canada, and it is so pleasant to meet fellow-countrymen. We both understand that it is part of his business to be delighted and to claim compatriotism with every caller, but we say nothing to interfere with his pleasure.
"Now let us see what we can do," says he, and he leads us up to a low desk and opens a big book, pointing you to a seat in the broad armchair and giving me the end of the sofa. "We have any sort of apartment you want, but it will save time if you will tell me what accomodations you require and about how much you are willing to pay."
There is no earthly reason why we should not reply in English; but the spirit of Paris is upon us, and we say that we must have a salon, a salle à mangeé, cuisine, trois chambres, a salle des bains, and at least one dressing room; and for the right place we are willing to pay perhaps 250 francs a month. That sounds less prosaic than to mention parlor, dining room, kitchen, three bedrooms, and bath at $50 a month.
"Ah, now, there's the trouble!" he exclaims, and an expression of keen anxiety overspreads his face. "Its those three sleeping rooms that are going to bother us. We have some fine apartments at that price, but they generally have one or perhaps two sleeping rooms; and every extra room of course adds to the cost. You couldn't go a little above 250 francs, I suppose?"
Artistic Work Commences.
We are careful not to smile at this "feeler," it is so artistically done; though we both understand, naturally, that the agent is not our agent, but the landlord's, from whom he derives his commission, and that the larger rent he can induce us to pay the larger his commission. So we hesitate over it, in a very businesslike way, and say that it would depend upon circumstances.
"Now I have a number of places that I know would suit you," he goes on, "if you could go just a trifle higher in price. Or perhaps we can find something at your price, with a little extra trouble. Anyhow I will make out a list of eight or ten places for you, and we'll see what we can do."
He copies a dozen addresses on the back of an envelope, and takes out his watch.
"I don't know, but I can let some other things stand and go with you to look at a few of these places," he continues. "Let me see, 10:45; yes, we might take a carriage and I can get you started, at any rate. You cannot be too careful in dealing with these Paris landlords. Everything must be put on paper, and before a witness. I am afraid you would not get along well alone in bargaining with them. You say you are not acquainted with the city? Oh, yes; I must go with you, certainly."
We are glad, no doubt, to have the agent with us, if only for guide and interpreter, though we know that guides and interpreters come high. And then we must be so careful in dealing with the Parisian landlords! Who knows what might have happened if we had encountered them alone?
There is no dearth of carriages in the neighborhood of Rue Scribe and the Grand Opera, and in five minutes we are off, the next young man doubtless taking his place at the desk in wait for the next customer.
In going through the streets our agent takes particular pains to make himself agreeable. He points out how we can always tell what region we are in in Paris without reference to the street signs. Here is the Madeleine, for instance; and for blocks around, in all directions, everything bears the name of Madeleine--Grand Magazine du Madeleine, Café du Madeleine, Bazar du Madeleine, and so on. And he compares things French with things American, always to the advantage of America. He points out hundreds of fine buildings belonging to insurance companies, and explains that they are required by law to own enough local real estate to guarantee their liabilities. He has more information than a guide book, and is more sociable than an impecunious friend.
The "Touch" is Felt.
After a long drive to the westward, we reach our first destination, which is in Rue Barye. When we meet the landlady we learn from the conversation that our agent has been there before within a few hours with a party of ladies. And what are they going to do, the lady wants to know. Oh, they have not made up their minds, the agent says; but he turns to us and adds in English that they are not going to take the place, though he does not want to hurt the landlady's feelings by telling her so.
We are taken up one flight of stairs to an apartment, rather handsomely furnished, that would suit admirably if the rooms enjoyed the advantage of a little more daylight. But the house is on the shady side of the street, and the rooms are too dark. So the landlady is told that these new applicants will make up their minds later, and, once in the carriage, Rue Barye is crossed off the list.
"Now we will take a short cut through the Bois de Boulogne," our agent says. "I want to show you a handsome place in Neuilly, just outside the fortifications. It may be a little too far out for you, but it is within a half an hour of the heart of the city, and there are trains and boats at all hours."
While driving through the shady Bois, which is more like a pleasure trip than a house-hunting expedition, we say something about keeping our friend too long from his business.
"Oh, it is no matter," he is quick to reply. "I may lose a few customers by my absence, but that's the way it goes. There is not much money in the business at any rate. I make very little out of it except what my customers choose to give me for my services."
That is another artistic touch, so gently applied that we hardly realize at the moment that it is a delicate intimation that our friend is not above accepting the tip of gratitude and satisfaction--the American tip in short.
A Bit of Strategy.
The Neuilly place proves to be far too much in the country, and we turn cityward again, to be stopped at the fortifications by the Octroi officers, who glance at the carriage to see whether we have any goods subject to duty. But as we have no chickens or eggs or fresh vegetables concealed about us we are allowed to pass, and within a few minutes the agent drops a very delicate hint about lunch, refraining from giving its French name on account of our Americanism.
This being received in frosty silence we go on a little way further, when he begins to grow solicitous about us. Even if we are not hungry, he thinks, it is not well for us to go too long without eating, until we become more used to the climate. We let him go on for some minutes solely for the enjoyment of his Michael Angelo touches, and at length invite him in proper form to lunch with us, leaving to his superior knowledge the choice of place.
Here, and here only, our friendly agent descends to the commonplace. With the choice of the whole city before him, he takes us to an uninviting restaurant with the cheapness written all over it--one of the places where you sit in little iron chairs on the sidewalk and eat cheap food from little iron tables. Even in this, though, there may be higher art than we suspect. If he makes our lunch bill small we have all the more left for the coming tip.
Then begins again the laborious but interesting round of examining apartments. We are seeing the interiors of more Paris houses to-day than we are likely to see again in a hurry. We climb stone stairs and wooden stairs, look through large rooms and small. Everywhere the kitchen is the same: a long, narrow closet, sometimes with a window and sometimes without; a range, and a great array of copper pans, called in this country the "batterie de cuisine."
In some of the places no sane mortal would think of living, but with most the great obstacle is their height. The Parisians must be a winged race, for they live in eyries high as church steeples and stand on frail balconies leaning against slender rails without sign of fear.
"Now I want to take you to Passy," he says at length, when we have sadly shaken our heads at everything offered. "I have a house there that I am sure would suit you, though the rent may be a little too high."
This gives us a shock. A whole house! And in Paris, where we have looked at some flats that rent for 3,500 francs a month! But he has said it, and in a few minutes more we are in Passy, close by the Trocadero Palace in one direction and the Arc de Triomphe in another.
Cooped by a Coup de Force.
We see at a glance that this is his star place, and that he has intended from the beginning that we shall rent it. It has a long frontage on the street, partly house and partly high stone wall. And the curious little stone house, strangely shaped, is only two stories high, so there can be no long series of stairs to climb.
The aged landlady herself opens the door and shows us into a tiled passage full of hangings and handsome furniture. She takes us into the big yard and turns on the fountain and exhibits her pet flowers. The place is all that could be desired, gas, bath, well furnished, big square kitchen shining with brass pans, big range, little range, and gas stove. Evidently it was once a suburban house, well walled in; but the spreading city has grown up around it.
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